


High Like A Satellite

by Aridette



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Crack, Drugs, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-25
Updated: 2015-02-25
Packaged: 2018-03-15 05:44:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3435635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aridette/pseuds/Aridette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shay and Gist are roommates, though it’s Gist’s second degree (which still makes him older than Shay, but not as much as he’d usually be, I suppose). Cook is their friend and lives in a dorm nearby. Achilles is a Professor at their college. He’s also a party pooper, but Shay makes the best of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	High Like A Satellite

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheWritingGuineapig (Aridette)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aridette/gifts).



They had been roommates ever since freshman year. To say they had been ordinary roommates would not do them justice however. They were a nightmare and every year people in their dorm prayed that the both of them would be paired off with someone else so they could finally stop worrying about what those two were up to next. Then again, that might have turned out to be tough luck for whoever got to room with them instead.

They had become friends the moment Shay walked into their shared room and found the older man rummaging through their kitchen in nothing but boxer shorts and finally conjuring up an Enterprise-shaped pizza cutter. With an enthusiastic smile Gist had beamed up at Shay and asked: “Pizza?”

Two years later, on the evening after their last exam, found them sitting cross-legged on their sofa. “That Davenport really got a stick up his ass, Shay. I don’t understand how you stand being in almost all of his classes. AND staying after class to finish some work in his office, too.”, Gist fussed.

Shay grinned.  
“That, my friend, is because you keep forgetting that he confiscates the good stuff.”  
His smile only grew wider when Gist looked at him, confusion written all over his face.  
And then, “Oh, don’t tell me you- Shaaaay, you didn’t, did you?”  
“Nick the goodies he took from the freshmen?”, the younger of them asked with an eyebrow wiggle. “You bet I did.”, he confirmed, rummaging through his jeans pockets and producing a small package of weed. “Thought we’d celebrate tonight.”  
“Destroy the evidence, huh?” For a few seconds they just grinned at one another. “You’re the man.”  
“Always glad to please”, Shay added as he rummaged through his bag on the floor for his lighter and the cigarette paper he kept in the back of a workbook.

At first Gist had wondered about that odd habit until Shay explained that “People don’t ask for fire these days. And you better look smart while keeping this stuff around. Works for me.” The older man doubted that it made any difference, given his roommate’s looks and charm and so he put it in his mental box of ‘Shay’s weird habits’. Right now though, he thought his roommate was incredibly clever for being prepared for any and all eventualities.

“Have you ever tried this before?”, he asked.  
“Nope. You?”  
“Nyeeeeeh, in a way.”, Gist stammered. “At my old dorms there used to be this guy who put weed on the heaters at parties. Guess we were all high at some point during those nights.”  
“Can’t believe it, Gist. You?”, Shay teased in fake mockery as he lit the joint and took the first few drags. He grinned and held it out for Gist to take.   
“What’s so funny, Cormac?”, Gist wondered.  
With a laugh Shay exhaled and blew the smoke he held in Gists face.  
“You’re an asshole, you know that?”, he scolded and stretched his legs, kicking Shay in the process and taking most of the sofa for himself in retribution. He leaned against the armrest and stared at the ceiling as he took a long drag.

After a minute of silence Shay leaned across Gist, effectively blocking his field of vision.  
“What’cha thinking? Whenever you go quiet you’re coming up with something.”, Shay asked.  
“Just thinking that you’re blocking my line of sight.”, Gist murmured.  
“Is our ceiling that spectacular?”, the younger man teased. “What if I said yes?”  
“Huh.”, Shay pondered that for a second. Then, beaming with delight, offered, “I’d have to convince you of the opposite… And I’ve got just the idea. Come on.” He poked Gist in the side and dragged him up by one arm.  
“Lightweight.”, Gist mumbled and stubbed out the joint, following Shay to the door.

Shay was putting his shoes on enthusiastically – also the wrong way around. “You might want to put the left shoe on the left foot, Shay”, Gist snorted with laughter.  
“Right, right. You are absolutely right.”  
Apparently the incident hadn’t dampened his mood in the least.

Soon enough he was dragging his older roommate out the front door and into a nearby park. When they were far enough from the streets and Shay was sure Gist would follow him on his own, he let go of his hand and instead spread his arms and threw his head back. “Now look at THAT!”, he yelled at the sky, “THAT is a ceiling!”  
Gist laughed. “Good Lord, Shay. How would our ceiling ever begin to compare to this?”  
“I know right. We should paint it.”, Shay agreed. A second later he was spinning around and cheering at the top of his lungs.  
“Shhhh”, Gist admonished him, then started giggling himself. Shay plopped down beside him, still seemingly enthralled by the night sky.

“I swear, Gist”, he suddenly whispered, “I can hear that blue and it’s aaaaawesome.”  
“What’s it sound like?”, the other man asked.  
“Dark blue. Somewhere between black and baby blue.”, Shay giggled in response and Gist soon followed suit.

Thoroughly exhausted from laughing non-stop for what felt like hours to them they laid on the lawn. Their laughter had died down a few minutes ago. Instead the nightly silence engulfed them.

“Do you hear that?”, Shay asked out of nowhere.  
“What do you mean? There’s nothing.”  
“No, no, there is. Don’t you hear it? It’s like… hfffffff.”  
Gist chuckled, too tired for any other response.  
“Hffffff”, Shay repeated.  
“That’s just the wind, Shay.”  
“But is it?”  
“Yes.”, Gist tried to say calmly but ended up laughing anyway.  
“On a scale of 1 to 10, how sure are you it’s just the wind.”, the younger man kept asking.  
“11.”

Although paranoid, at least Shay’s attention span was only a few moments, Gist thought when Shay began once again: “Hmmmmm.”  
“What did you hear now?”  
“I’m hungry.”, he explained.  
“You HEARD that?”, Gist broke into giggles for the umpteenth time that night.  
“Noooo”, Shay replied petulantly, “And you know what I mean.”  
It took Gist a moment to regain his earlier composure. “Yeah, I do. … Me too. But I think our fridge is kinda empty.”  
Shay grinned. “Let’s visit Cook.”  
Gist’s face brightened instantly.

No 20 minutes later they stood in front of their friend’s door and knocked. Loudly.  
“Jaaames~”, Shay sang out of tune. “If you love us at all~ you will open that door~.”, he continued.  
“Jaaaames”, he dropped his voice. Just as he was about to continue the door opened and a thoroughly pissed off James Cook stood in front of them. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”, he asked, rubbing his eyes.  
“Not the foggiest”, Gist replied and pushed past their friend, opening the door wide enough to allow Shay to slip in behind him. “But is it ever a bad time to stop by and tell your friend how much you love him?”  
“Yes, I do think there is such a time.” Glancing at his wall clock he continued: “And I think 3 a.m. qualifies as a ‘bad time’”.  
“Eeeeeh, it may be a bad time, but we do love you, if that helps any?”, Shay offered.  
“No. No, it really doesn’t.”, their friend stuttered, still recovering from the shock of finding them in front of his door like this.  
“But-”, Shay began, then looked at Gist. They each raised a hand, slotting them together to form a heart in the space between them. “Love?” They looked at their friend expectantly.  
Cook just shook his head. “I’m going back to bed. And you’d better be quiet if you don’t want me to kick you out.”, he proclaimed and stomped off.  
Shay blinked in confusion. Gist just shrugged, then pointed over his shoulder. “He didn’t say we couldn’t check the fridge.”

They were lucky, finding a bunch of leftovers and sandwiches. Gist was busy figuring out which Sandwich held which filling when Shay broke into giggles again. Upon turning around he found the other man quietly laughing tears in front of the microwave, trying not to wake up the owner of the kitchen. Just as he was about to ask what had caused that sudden fit, the bowl currently in the microwave was turned further, revealing a stupidly grinning face drawn across it’s outside. It must have been a cereal bowl to begin with but right now it was the funniest thing Shay and Gist had ever seen. Gist barked out a laugh, then quickly clutched a hand across his mouth to shut himself up. Their laughing only subsided once the bowl was facing the other way, but came back with full force as soon as the first lines of the smiley were visible again. Luckily the microwave ‘pling’ed after another minute and the other bowls were fairly normal.

Finally having sated their hunger with whatever they could find and deemed edible, they sprawled out on the sofa. “I don’t think we both fit”, Gist murmured against the back of Shay’s head, “not like this anyway.” The younger man sighed, but got up. “Fine. Get comfy.”, he yawned and motioned with his hands for Gist to hurry. “What about you?”  
“Oh, don’t worry. I’ll get comfy in just a second.”, he assured, all the while looking for the blanket he knew their friend kept around somewhere.  
Once Gist had settled against the cushions and Shay had found the blanket, he straddled his older roommate, settling against his chest. When they found a position neither of them found too uncomfortable, Shay pulled the blanket over them.  
“Little warning next time?”, Gist snorted, but Shay was already fast asleep the second he closed his eyes.

The next morning they woke to a horrified scream of “WHAT THE HECK, GUYS?! EVEN THE CEREALS?!”

**Author's Note:**

> I derived some details from stories that went around our dorms in London and some other from personal experience :P   
> Wanna take a guess which actually happened to me?


End file.
